Denmark Has Long Controlled Greenland

BY JAMES HOOKWAY

President Trump questioned the legitimacy of Denmark’s claims to Greenland over the weekend while amping up rhetoric for his plans for the U.S. to acquire the Danish-held region.

On Wednesday, Trump said he reached the “framework of a future deal” on Greenland with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, in a social-media post from Davos. He suggested it will benefit U.S. national security and access to minerals. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said negotiations would continue among Greenland, Denmark and the U.S.

Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen had previously said his country didn’t want to be a U.S. territory. Over the weekend, Trump texted Norway’s prime minister, “There are no written documents, it’s only a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.”

Trump is partly right. The Danish claim dates back to the first few times Europeans set out to find new lands across the Atlantic Ocean, and specifically to the saga of Erik the Red.

Norse Vikings had been aware of lands to the west of Iceland since the ninth century. They were intrepid sailors and had put down roots in Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the northern reaches of Scotland.

It was around 985 that the Norse made their first settlement among the fjords of southern Greenland. The Norse stayed there for decades if not centuries, making the region part of an empire governed from Norway. There is evidence to suggest that Leif Erikson, Erik’s son, went on to explore the lands around what is now Newfoundland.

By the time Denmark and Norway became a single kingdom in the 16th century, contact with Greenland had largely been lost. Norwegian priest and missionary Hans Egede set out to reconnect with Greenland and convert whoever was there to Protestantism and found an Inuit community. Centuries of slow colonization and conversion followed.

Later, when Denmark and Norway split apart in the 19th century, Norway formed a union with Sweden, while, crucially, Denmark kept hold of Greenland.

Secretary of State William H. Seward had proposed buying Greenland and Iceland from Denmark after securing Alaska from Russia in 1867. In World War II, the U.S. deployed a military presence on the island to deter any aggression from Nazi Germany.

At the war’s close, President Harry Truman made a secret offer to buy Greenland for $100 million in gold, which Denmark rejected.

In the decades that followed, the U.S. expanded its military presence on Greenland while, politically, the island came under closer Danish control. But now opinion polls suggest a majority of Greenlanders would like to see full independence.

At the same time, Russia and China have been expanding their activities in the region in recent years.

While Trump says there are no written documents to support the Danes’ claim to the territory, U.S. State Department records suggest otherwise. The U.S. actually affirmed Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland in 1916 as part of a deal to buy islands in the Caribbean from Denmark.